Russian opposition leader Navalny faces new charges

AFP, MOSCOW

Tue, Dec 25, 2012 - Page 7

Russian investigators yesterday opened a third criminal case against an opposition leader who poses one of the main challenges to Russian President Vladimir Putin in opinion polls.

The Investigative Committee said it had charged the anti-corruption blogger and lawyer Alexei Navalny with “swindling committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale.”

The offense carries a jail sentence of up to 10 years.

Navalny spearheaded the opposition movement that emerged last winter in the wake of disputed parliamentary elections that the ruling party won despite suspicions of fraud.

The 36-year-old Navalny — often ranked as the most popular opposition campaigner and an emerging politician who has not ruled out running for president — denies all the charges and views the probes against him as political.

“Lord, they have opened another criminal case against me,” Navalny tweeted moments after the news was announced. “The Investigative Committee — what are you doing ... Enough already.”

Navalny is already the focus of an embezzlement probe linked to a murky business deal conducted by a small regional timber company in which he was involved. That offense also risks a 10-year sentence.

Investigators last week also launched a money laundering investigation against Navalny and his brother related to a little-known trading company.

The latest case involves 100 million rubles (US$3.2 million) allegedly stolen from a liberal political party called the Union of Rightist Forces (SPS) in 2007.

The charges state that a company involving Navalny had secured an SPS advertising contract that was never properly fulfilled.

Navalny’s Allekt firm “transferred the money it received on accounts of firms, most of which bore the signs of fake enterprises and fly-by-night operations,” the committee said in a statement.

SPS disbanded in 2008 after badly losing a series of elections and none of its former leaders issued an immediate comment.